In 1510, the first sizable shipment of slaves--around 250 Africans--arrived in Hispaniola from Spain. The enslaved Africans, in the Dominican and other Caribbean islands, brought dances from their West African homeland to the West Indies. The bele dance formed from a combination of traditional African moves and a Caribbean traits due to the changed landscape, musical instruments, and tumultuous lifestyle.
In Africa, the Bele dance had origins in festivals associated with mating and fertility. A male and female (in Creole, the \"Cavalier\" and the \"Dam\") show off their dance skills to the other dancer, hinting at their sexuality in chants led by a \"chantuelle\" meaning singer and the refrain or \"lavway\" given by a chorus of spectators. The French named the dance \"Belaire,\" or good air, which shortened to Bele.
In the West Indies the dance incorporated into work and periods of festivity and lamenting. Because the Bele dance ranged through so many diverse events and life-events, the dance and music continued to evolved over time from slavery into freedom.
As the dance moved throughout the Caribbean islands, the dance adopted new names and moves as it passed along. In the French Caribbean, in northern Martinique, the dance is known as the \"Bele Lino\" or \"Bele Lisid.\" As a set-dance, or dance with layered moves and sections, it comprises the belia, the gwanbele, and the bidjin bele movements. Danced to the bele drum, the dance is regarded as a \"rural\" or folk dance.
The Bele folk dance incorporates \"call and response\" songs known in Creole as \"Lavway\" that is used in Bele. The traditional dance incorporates the fiddle, accordion, banjo and African drums. Goatskin, stretched across hollow wooden frames carved from tree trunks and sugar factory casks, formed original drums or ?\"gro kas?\" in the French territories.
Caribbean Carnival performers continue to celebrate Bele folk dance and music. Women wear brightly colored dresses with large, flowing skirts that add power and engaging visuals to the rhythmic dance.Some twentieth century music styles emerge from Bele dance and music like forms of calypso, zouk, soca, and reggae,